


Laundry Day

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Laundromat AU, nuttin' but fluff, written for AUgust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 03:32:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15597318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: She wouldn't have put on the mystery shirt if she'd been anything but desperate.Of course, that's the day she sees the cute guy she maybe probably definitely stole it from.





	Laundry Day

**Author's Note:**

> written for a Tumblr user who asked me for a Laundromat AU in honor of AUgust. (Which is a thing I love and will definitely be doing next year.)

Caitlin Snow felt more than a little guilty about putting on the mystery shirt.

But she was out of clothes. Not in the way she was usually out of clothes, which was, “I’m out of clothes that I want to wear” or even “I’m out of clothes that I’m willing to be seen wearing in public.”

She’d survived finals, and she was truly _out_ of clothes.

She had exactly one pair of yoga pants (that had fallen to the back of her closet), one clean pair of panties (they always gave her a wedgie), a sports bra (she hadn’t been to the gym in a month), and this mystery shirt, which she’d found mixed in with her clothes the last time she’d gone to the laundromat. Everything else was so dirty and disgusting that she could practically see stink lines forming above her overflowing laundry basket.

The perils of being a med student.

She’d been saving the shirt in a bag, intending to take it back to the Wash'n'Save and turn it into the lost and found. But it was literally the only thing she could put on her body so that she would be decent enough to wash all her other clothes. It was this shirt or Febrezing the stink out of one of the shirts from her laundry basket.

You had to draw the line somewhere.

So, she would wear it, wash it, and turn it in next time.

Anyway, it was a really comfortable shirt. It was black cotton, big on her, and buttery soft in the way that meant it had been worn and washed for years, with the words “I Aim to Misbehave” in stylized font on the front. She kind of liked it.

As she unloaded her two very full laundry bags from her car, she wondered how she was going to get the door open with her hands full. Maybe she should make two trips, or -

“Hey, hey, I gotcha. Here.”

The door swung open, held by a guy her own age, with shiny black hair curling out from under his knit beanie and a bright smile that beamed at her. “Got it all?”

“Yes,” she panted, heaving her second bag inside the door and kicking snow off her boots. “Thanks so much.”

He let the door swing shut, cutting out the cold whistle of the wind and leaving them alone in the warm, faintly humid air of the Wash'n'Save. “No problem.”

She’d seen him before. He always smiled at her and held the door if her hands were full. Once he’d broken a dollar for her when the machine was out of quarters. But they always seemed to miss each other - him leaving as she was coming in, or vice versa. And even if their time did overlap, she was usually buried in a textbook while trying to think of some smooth way to introduce herself.

He also had a seemingly endless collection of quirky, nerdy t-shirts. She didn’t know half what they were referring to, but they featured robots and spaceships and cats and memes and puns, and always looked very comfortable.

The thought had crossed her mind that The Shirt might be _his_ shirt. She felt a blush starting up her throat, and focused on digging her rolls of quarters out of her purse. At least the laundromat was dead today, and she could wash everything almost simultaneously. No waiting around for a dryer to free up.

“So, no big thick textbooks today?”

It took her a moment to realize he was talking to her. “Wha - oh. No. Finals. Are done.” Dammit, she was blushing. So very smooth, Caitlin. “I’m giving my brain a break.”

“I hear that.” He held out a fist, and after a moment of bafflement, she bumped it with her own. “What’s your program?”

“I’m a medical student.” She set her bottle of detergent next to her quarters and started sorting her clothes into different machines. What with heaving the laundry around, she was starting to sweat under her thick coat.

“Damn, I thought I had it bad.” He tossed boxers into his machine. His coat was draped over a bench facing the dryers. “I’m in mechanical engineering.”

“At the U?” She applied stain remover to a top with splotches of pasta sauce down the front. She hoped it could be salvaged. It really wasn’t wise to wrestle a textbook and eat spaghetti at the same time.

“Yep. You going home for the holidays?”

She felt sweat roll down her spine, and gave up, unzipping her coat and shrugging it off. “My mother lives here in town, so I’m staying. You?”

“Don’t have the cash. It’s okay. Hey, nice shirt.”

“Thanks.” _I think it’s yours? I might have stolen it from you?_ Ugh.

“I used to have one just like it. I think the dryer ate it.” He narrowed his eyes at the dryer closest to him. “I’m on to you, villain. I better get all my sweet Star Trek shirts back.”

“Um,” she said, focusing on zipping the fly of her favorite jeans, which could almost stand up on their own.

“So anyway, are you a Browncoat?”

“Is … Is that a sports team?”

He paused, halfway through pulling a shirt right-side out. “No? Browncoat. Firefly fan?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a TV show. Kind of a space western.“

She glanced down at the shirt. Now that she thought about it, the font did look sort of wild west-y. "Oh, that sounds interesting. When is it on?”

“It’s not anymore. It ran for like half a season ten years ago. But it lives on in our hearts.” He pointed at her shirt. “That’s from the movie. So if you don’t know the show, why do you have a shirt?”

“To tell the truth,” she admitted, “I found it.”

His eyebrows went up. “Where?”

“Here? The last time I did laundry I was running behind and I just grabbed everything from the dryer and had to run to class so I didn’t get the chance to fold it right away like I always do and then I found it mixed up with my shirts when I was folding at home, later.” She took a much-needed breath. “I think it’s yours. I’m sorry.”

He looked like he was trying to figure out what she’d said, which was fair, because she’d just sort of opened her mouth and let them fall out all at once. “Mine?” he said.

“The one you lost.”

“Is the hem coming out?”

She pulled the hem of the shirt out and flipped it up. Sure enough, the stitching was pulling out, little threads straggling. “Yes.”

“Yep. Mine.”

“I’m so sorry, I wouldn’t have worn it if I’d known I would see you today.” She heard what she’d said and felt the blush crawl up her cheeks. “I mean, I would have brought it back to you, not that I would have hidden it or - “

"Hey, it’s okay. It’s a shirt. I’ve got a million. And god knows I’ve taken home weird socks before. I’m Cisco Ramon, by the way. I usually tell people my name before they’re in a position to wear my clothes.”

She blushed harder. “Caitlin Snow. And I can give it back if you want.”

He looked at her laundry bags, still half-full. “Do you have literally anything else to wear at this moment?”

“Not exactly, no. But, um, if you’ll give me your number, I can wash it and fold it and get it back to you as soon as I can.” Okay, that actually had been smooth. She was kind of impressed with herself.

"Nah, keep it,” he said.

She felt her shoulders sag, just the tiniest bit. “Are you sure? It’s really comfy.”

“I’m sure. It looks so much better on you.” He glanced over at her, eyes warm, smile wide. “But I will take your number.”

FINIS


End file.
